ATDTDA (19): Of Juggernauts, renegades, sidekicks, 525-531

[Paul Nightingale]

The trawler's crew still doesn't know what to make of Kit as he leaves them.
Apparently he expects to return to the life he had before, "assum[ing]
there'd be a room reserved and waiting" at the Continental. A Lacanian
moment follows when he sees himself in the mirror: a sudden realisation that
he isn't who he thought he was. Going back, "almost where he started from":
so an alternative beginning, a second take on the chapter. The first
paragraph ends with him trying to "figur[e] out how to get to Gottingen",
just as, in the previous chapter, he had tried, unsuccessfully, to return to
the passenger liner (519).

On 511, Kit got on well with Root, "despite the language difference". Here,
Root has been replaced by "an unkempt, indeed seedy, band of varying ages
and nationalities, whose only common language Kit recognised presently as
that of the Quaternions" (525): "unkempt" also applies to the Kit viewed in
a mirror, emphasised by the reference to "seaweed on his suit", of course.
Subsequently, they "embody, for the established scientific religion, a
subversive, indeed heretical, faith ..." etc (526). So Kit's meandering
progress brings him in line with a group in another kind of exile. At the
hotel assures him he isn't "the only one dossing here free of charge" (527):
another stage in the decline/transformation of his personal status (from
first class to fourth class, to engine room aboard the Stupendica, then
fisherman, etc). Reminiscent of Slothrop. Moreover, he feels "almost as if
he'd once, somehow actually belonged to" Young Congo: "escap[ing] the Vibe
curse", he can almost remember what appears to be an alternative personal
history. Kit has travelled a long way since, aboard the Stupendica, he felt
trapped, unable "to resist the irreversible theft from his life, the great
simple fact of Webb's absence" (515).

The Belgian nihilists discuss assassination (528); and reference to "the
implacable Juggernaut of History" returns us to the Stupendica by allowing
the reader to bring their superior knowledge of WW1 to bear. Cf. the
previous chapter's "future European war at sea which everyone was conscious
would come" (515).

This scene also recalls Webb-as-bomber and, allegedly, Kieselguhr Kid. Kit
is styled "an American gunslinger" (529, "Eugenie gazing meaningfully ..."),
which in turn recalls Dwayne's attempt to turn Frank into the Kid (382). In
fact, from this point on, following his response ("Hard to say ..." etc,
529), Kit is invisible for the rest of the section; having led the reader to
Young Congo, he has no more part to play here. His disappearance is quickly
followed by the noisy entrance of Rocco and Pino, with whom Eugenie and
Fatou are infatuated. Indeed, Fatou's question to Pino ("How many ships have
you actually ... blown up ...", 530) recalls Eugenie's gunslinger question
to Kit. And Eugenie and Fatou might recall Dally and Bria aboard the
Stupendica (eg the chaperone scene on 514). When introduced, the "Italian
... renegades" (529) recall the way Deuce and Sloat were said to complement
each other (195); and such doubling also reminds us of the inseparable Ns.